Lawmakers question objectivity of DOE study on electricity markets

Republican senator Charles Grassley has joined Democrats in criticizing a 60-day review of electricity markets and grid reliability that was ordered last month by energy secretary Rick Perry. The senators charge that the report is rigged to reach the conclusion that federally subsidized wind and solar power has caused the decline of coal and nuclear generation and increased electricity grid instability.

Grassley, whose state of Iowa generates 36% of its electricity from wind, said the review that Perry ordered in a 14 April memorandum “appears to pre-determine that variable, renewable sources such as wind have undermined grid reliability.” The study, he wrote to Perry on 17 May , “will not be viewed as credible, relevant or worthy of valuable taxpayer resources.” Grassley asked Perry to provide details on the study process, including who is conducting the analysis and which experts and grid reliability and security organizations will be consulted.

Grassley contrasted the “hastily developed” review—Perry ordered its completion by mid-June—with a two-year study of the same subject by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In that study , completed last year, the NREL concluded that renewable energy could meet up to 80% of US electric demand by 2050 if changes are made to enhance grid flexibility. Other studies by the NREL have stated that the fuel-cost savings provided by renewables would far outweigh the added costs of adapting fossil-fuel and nuclear generation sources to accommodate increasing amounts of variable wind and solar power sources.

Seven of the nine Democratic members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources had already voiced their displeasure to Perry in a 1 May letter . The study, the letter states, “appears to be intended to blame wind and solar power for the financial difficulties facing coal and nuclear electric generators and to suggest that renewable energy resources threaten the reliability of the grid.” The senators noted that Perry staffer Travis Fisher, who was instructed to lead the study, previously worked for the Institute for Energy Research, a nonprofit funded by billionaires Charles Koch and David Koch.

The Democratic lawmakers asserted that “it does not take a Ph.D. in economics to understand” that historically low natural gas prices, not renewables, are responsible for the declining viability of coal and nuclear sources. The prevailing price of all forms of electricity generation depends almost entirely on fossil fuels, they wrote, so eliminating or altering wind and solar energy incentives would have little effect on the competitiveness of a coal or nuclear plant. They added that Perry was governor of Texas when the state became the leading producer of wind power, with wind now accounting for nearly a quarter of all the electricity carried on the state’s grid.